The problem with Watford (and was it Stroud in Gloucestershire?) Is that Oxfords almost equidistant between them. It's over an hour in the car each way as well... Whereas nice little Abingdon is just down the road from Oxford with Wolvercote even closer...

...Headed over to the Summertown group. It's full and healthy in terms of numbers, variety, boards and terrain. I saw games of flames of war, 40k, bloodbowl, fantasy, and warmachine/hordes. Apparently that was a 'quiet' night as well as no students in town. It seems pretty tourny orientated though... There's a £15 yearly sub, plus fees for both playing and watching(!) that are slightly reduced if you're a member... That said, it's a big healthy group of players with some proper organisation (treasurer, secretary etc). This includes an opponent-finder on their forum for people to arrange games for the week(s) ahead.

Do we roughly agree on what we're looking for here? My thought is primarily we'd like a venue with tables available, some potential new blood / convertees would also be a bonus.

As long as the attendence fees are reasonable I have no problem with that, although the "watching" fee seems short sighted it's probably the only practical solution if you're trying to administer the playing fee. My only question would be on a busy night whether there's any problems over table availability, did they give any impression on that?

What are our next steps here? Probably first priority is to meet for beer as per Golgfag1's suggestion If we could then arrange a few games to play at the venue to have fun / show them the Oldhammer way / see what they think of us and vice versa then perhaps we can start to think longer term?

I reckon we might be over-complicating things here. Why don't we just try and pinch a table at GW one games night (they do still have those don't they?) for the first couple of weeks?

My primary concern is that the Summertown group are going to want to see £17 up-front (minimum; and from each of us[!]) the first time we rock up - and that's quite the dis-incentive for an initial get-together.

In hindsight, I also wonder about a mis-matching ethos between us Oldhammer-ers(sp?) and this Summertown group. The two guys (out of three) who run it and whom I met seemed advocates of power-gaming for sure, and there was certainly quite a few unpainted armies floating around and talks of up-coming tournaments etc. If nothing else, I'd imagine that obtaining converts would be a tough job from such a crowd no? Questions such as "What's the name of your general?" and, "What could be a fun made-up rule to cover this unexpected eventuality?" didn't seem to be the kind of thing on their minds...

Re: Table availability: Can't imagine that there'd be a problem to be honest. The place is pretty big with lots of spare space and facilities. We're not talking some piddly room here, but a large community centre.

Beginning with beer is an excellent first step however! We can sort things out from there for sure. Having a laugh and creating some good stories is what it's all about really.

I've just gained a problem with Monday evenings, my daughter wants to go to Ballroom dancing lessons and yes, you guessed it - I'm the lift, deep joy. So I'm more than happy to switch venues and give the 'power' gamers a miss. How about Abingdon on Friday evening (if I recall that's when they meet at the local conservative club)? But how about just meeting up and having a chat & a pint?